


home (is wherever i'm with you)

by TheoreticalOnly



Category: Nomad of Nowhere (Web Series)
Genre: And neither of them are capable of admitting it, And you could say she's in love with Skout, Canon Compliant, Despite the fact that their mutual affection/attraction is obvious to everyone else, F/F, Takes Place Between Episodes 3 and 4, You could also say that Skout is in love with Toth, You could say Toth is slightly jealous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-06-29 12:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoreticalOnly/pseuds/TheoreticalOnly
Summary: To reiterate, Toth isn’t jealous. Absolutely not. She has never experienced jealousy, ever, in her life.





	1. stars

“Toth?”

Toth and Skout have been on enough excursions together for the captain to know (begrudgingly) that ignoring the spittoon girl won’t deter her from her midnight quandary. She briefly considers throwing something in response, but right now the closest available ballistic objects are her knives, and, well, Skout isn’t annoying enough to merit threats of stabbing.

Any of the other Dandy Lions wouldn’t be so fortuitous.

“Toth?”

She groans into her bedroll but submits to her fate nonetheless. _“What_ is it, Skout?”

“D’you ever miss your home?”

It’s a poignant enough question that Toth actually opens her eyes. Skout is looking at her from across the scant embers of the campfire, her wild copper hair a reflection of the flame that was. For a moment, Toth is at a loss for words.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Skout says, averting her gaze. “That’s probably a mighty insensitive thing of me to ask.”

“No, Skout, it’s not.” Toth tries at an approximation of a smile. “If it were any other time of day, I would say it’s almost sweet of you to ask.”

Skout turns a curious shade of pink and nestles more comfortably into her bedroll, as if she can seal herself off from the perils of the desert night simply by tucking in. “I was just missing home. And… I was wondering if you ever do the same.”

Toth rolls onto her back and pillows her hands at the base of her skull. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about home in a long time. There’s no sense in it. I can’t return, possibly ever, even if I do catch the Nomad. Why bother reminiscing about a place I don’t belong?” She bites her lip and lets her eyes trail the gossamer network of constellations above -- constellations that once circled the skies of her village in the same pattern, the same celestial dance. “It’s not as if I really require a ‘home.’ If it isn’t relevant to my mission, and it can’t help me provide for my people, it’s just another extraneous detail. A base of operations is as much as I need.”

Her answer seems to make Skout uncomfortable, which she gleans from the strained silence that follows. She’s drifting back to sleep when Skout says (or alternatively, she imagines Skout saying in a bout of truly pitiable wistfulness), “I miss home less when I’m with you.”

Now, when Toth decides not to answer, Skout accepts it.

They’re up at daybreak. Skout is busy dismantling and disguising signs of their makeshift camp, a task which the men will all admit she exceeds them in. Toth charts their course for the day. There’s a town eight hours north where tales of living objects and an itinerant stranger are said to be cropping up. It could be nothing, but a lead’s a lead, and as it currently stands, Toth can’t do much but take chances.

“Wagons’re loaded,” Skout calls.

“Alright, men,” Toth says, rolling up her map, “time to move out. If we’re going to make it to Saguaro Township before nightfall, we’ll need to ride hard with no stops.”

There’s a chorus of “yes’ms” and “yes, captains” as the soldiers file stiffly into their wagons, probably all still sore and hurting from yesterday’s encounter with a hardy gang of bandidos. Skout, of course, is chipper and limber as ever, having been shielded by Toth from combat (save for the instance in which Skout very admirably used one of her more prized stabbing knives to fend off an assailant, a sight she won’t soon forget).

“Oh, I can’t wait to get to Saguaro,” Skout chirps as Toth takes her seat. “I went there once when I was a little kid with my ol’ Paw on business. They have the most marvelous book shop in all of Nowhere. I was friends with the girl whose parents ran it, too. We were pen pals for years, til I finally left home. Maybe she’ll still be there. You think she will?”

Toth slaps the reins and the wagon lurches forward as the horses set into a canter. “This isn’t a social call,” Toth reminds her drily. “We may only stay a few hours, if the lead turns into a dead end.”

Skout is undeterred. “Well, I’ll be happy if I get to see Fawn even for just a few minutes, if that’s all I get.” She leans her head on Toth’s armored shoulder and clutches at her arm. “Oh, Fawn’s the _best,_ Toth. I can’t wait for you to meet her!”

Through gritted teeth, Toth manages, “I’m sure she’s lovely.”

“Well, sure, she’s lovely,” Skout agrees. “She’s half Ydala on her mother’s side. They looked just alike. Same skin, same face, same hair, always back in a braid. She tried to teach me, but I weren’t much talent in that regard.”

“Your hair looks fine as it is,” Toth says. It’s meant to sound dismissive. Doesn’t work.

“And big blue eyes,” Skout sighs, “prettier’n I ever saw.”

It’s not that Toth is jealous. That’s an ugly fallibility limited to humans and similar creatures, which are plagued by jealousy in a way that Toth will never fathom. Perhaps it wouldn’t be _entirely_ remiss to categorize herself as uncomfortable in some way, but why shouldn’t Toth be uncomfortable? Skout ends up chattering about this _Fawn_ animatedly for hours, and frankly, it’s grating on her nerves. So when she asks Skout to _please_ occupy her mouth with something other than talking, and to limit all further interactions to what is strictly necessary for their sojourn, she does her best to feel justified when Skout deflates and puts a few more inches between them on the driver’s bench.

To reiterate, Toth isn’t jealous. Absolutely not. She has never experienced jealousy, ever, in her life.

 

The blue sky is giving way to its evening gradient when Toth senses trouble.

“Skout.” Her spittoon girl is asleep beneath the wagon cover. _“Skout._ Wake up.”

“Mmhi, Toth,” Skout slurs. “We there yet?”

“Not quite.” Toth has slowed the horses and signaled to the others to do the same. “Skout, I want you to grab a knife and stay hidden. Do I make myself clear? Something feels off.”

Toth scans the horizon for movement. Maybe a mile or so ahead, Saguaro Township looks stagnant. Not the sort of stagnancy that accompanies abandonment, but the sort that precedes ambush.

“Toth,” Skout whispers from her hiding spot.

 _“Not now,”_ Toth hisses.

“Toth, you need to gallop the horses.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

Skout raises her voice. “Because it’ll make it harder for the archers behind us to land a hit!”

She’s barely finished her sentence when the first flaming arrow strikes the back of the wagon. The horses whinny in terror and bolt without any need for prompting; Toth almost loses the reins in the process, and the leather slipping from her hands bites and bruises, cutting into the skin of her palms as a lash. Skout yelps as she attempts damage control, dodging arrows and simultaneously attempting to put out the fire that’s engulfed the wagon cover.

“Get out of there, Skout,” Toth calls. She feels the heat of the flames at her back, can smell the tips of her hair singing. “Don’t worry about the supplies!”

Skout emerges, coughing, cheeks and arms smeared dark with ash. “What do we do?”

Another volley of arrows whistles past, planting columns of flame in the sand with every miss. “Get on a horse,” Toth shouts.

“You want me to _what --”_ Toth hoists Skout up by the scruff of her shirt and flings her forward. It’s a lucky throw, because Skout is barely hanging onto her galloping mount by his mane. _“Toth!”_

Toth takes her axe and swings once, severing the horses from the wagon. “Keep riding!” she cries. “Don’t you dare look back, Skout!”

Damn her, Skout looks back, but at least she keeps on going.

The captain abandons her burning wagon and takes cover behind it. A thick veil of smoke and dust is hanging in the air, obscuring her view of the fray. She still hasn’t seen a single one of their attackers, but her men all seem to be in the same predicament as she. Null and Jethro have similarly abandoned their wagons, both aflame, and a couple of horses lie dead on the ground, arrows sprouting from their necks and bellies. The sight itself isn’t so terrible to behold, but the _smell --_ god.

Finally, she catches sight of a single archer as they nock and light their arrow. Toth reaches into her boot and produces a single throwing knife. She has an effective range of 40 meters, but with the poor visibility, she can only hope to pinpoint her target by the sight of the flaming arrow before it’s loosed.

Toth takes aim. The knife leaves her hand the moment the arrow flies. The arrow misses. Her knife does not.

She runs toward her fallen adversary, ducking under the cover of smoke to avoid detection. When she arrives at the spot where her target fell, she finds a figure shrouded in a black cloak. Her knife is lodged in the stranger’s thigh, which has taken to bleeding liberally. “Why did you attack us?” Toth demands. She plants her boot on the stranger’s chest, but doesn’t apply any pressure yet. “You have ten seconds to give me an answer I like.”

“We’ve been besieged by criminals and bounty hunters for weeks,” the stranger replies. It’s a feminine voice, spoken through gritted teeth. “You could say we’re prepared.”

The woman beneath her raises her bow and swipes Toth’s feet out from under her. Toth rolls into the fall and springs up a few feet away, ready to re-engage. The stranger pulls the knife from her thigh and holds it up menacingly; Toth can tell she knows how to use it.

“Surrender now,” Toth says, holding her axe forwards, “and we’ll grant you clemency. Don’t you know you’ll bleed out if you don’t treat your wound? Don’t be stupid!”

“I’d rather die for my people than surrender to the likes of _you,”_ the stranger spits. “You’re one of his, aren’t you? One of the Don’s dogs. Pathetic.”

Toth snarls something unintelligible and takes a swing, landing a clean blow to the stranger with the flat of her blade and knocking her back into the ground. “You have one more chance,” Toth snaps. “We aren’t here for your water. We’re here for the Nomad. And if you have any information on him, _anything,_ rest assured I will see to your treatment in recovery. If you don’t --”

The woman _laughs._ “You would kill me, sister?”

Toth narrows her eyes. “Sister?”

Her eyes go wide when the woman draws back her hood to reveal pointed Ydala ears and a defiant pair of sky blue eyes.

“You’re her,” she murmurs. "You're Fawn."

Fawn is visibly startled. “How…”

“Call off your men,” Toth commands, “and I will call off mine.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“Call them off,” Toth whispers, resting the edge of her axe at Fawn’s chin, “before one of them hurts my Skout.”

Fawn's face softens in recognition. She raises her fingers to her lips and whistles. The sounds of battle fade to the silence of twilight in Nowhere.


	2. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Skout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all enjoy this installment. the next one will have more skout. and far more romantic tension. <3  
> catch me on tumblr @ mare-crisium.tumblr.com!!

Following their brief battle at the border of Saguaro Township, Toth and the Dandy Lions salvage what supplies they can from the burnt wreckage of their caravan. Fawn leaves in pursuit of Skout (“As I said, we have been plagued by bandits of all sorts, and it’s best we find her before they do”), and though she promises the committed assistance of her men, they’re an undisciplined team of town vigilantes, better suited to sneering at outsiders than being of any use.

“This never would have happened were I in charge of this operation,” Manuel prattles audibly as he rounds up the remaining horses. “Unlike our captain, I have a nose for danger.”

Jethro is nursing a slight burn. “Seems kind of unfair. It’s not like you warned us of this.”

“Would any of you have listened if I had?” Manuel demands. He’s met with silence. “All I’m saying is that I’m getting tired of relying on all this _feminine intuition.”_

Toth bristles and focuses on extracting the remains of Skout’s books from the ashes.

Null sidles up beside her and uses his bow to help move pieces of still-hot wood off of their valuables. “Captain Toth, we both know I’m usually the last person here to stick my neck out for you, but I need to understand something. Why do you put up with his insubordination?”

“You should know.” Toth kneels in the sand and dusts off one of Skout’s thick tomes on wilderness survival. “I’m Ydala in a human’s world and a woman in a man’s world. If I put up with every instance of disrespect and insubordination I encountered, I wouldn’t have time or energy left to do my job. So I put up with his blithering. I must.”

“No, you don’t! You have a choice to…” Null sighs when Toth raises her eyes to meet his. “Yes, Captain.”

“If you’re concerned about insubordination among my ranks,” Toth remarks tersely, “begin by addressing your own.”

She hands him one of Skout’s books and steps away. Just for a moment. Just for a little air.

The stars had seemed so friendly last night. Now, they’re cold, impersonal. They don’t twinkle to the crackle of a campfire. They don’t shimmer behind the silhouette of Skout’s perennially undone hair, or dot the green oases of her eyes. Tonight, they’re scattered abundantly up in the black as far as the eye can see, the band of the Milky Way extending past the horizon, each star a reminder of how infinitesimally small she is, how powerless, how utterly ineffectual. If Toth can’t protect Skout, if she can’t earn the loyalty of her men, if she can’t capture the Nomad, if she can’t help her people, what can she possibly be worth?

Toth feels her posture slipping and she straightens back into her usual military stance. “What’s the status of our inventory?” she demands, turning to face her men.

“Well, usually inventory is Skout’s job,” Santi pipes up.

“Where _is_ our spittoon girl, Captain?” Manuel asks, stroking his chin. “Usually she can be found cowering in your shadow after a battle, but we haven’t seen head or tail of her for a while now.”

Toth forces a smile. “I’m so glad you asked. Until we find our spittoon girl, I’m deputizing _you_ to fulfill all her obligations. I expect a full inventory in the next fifteen minutes.” When he opens his mouth to protest, she adds, “Your time started when I gave the order.”

Manuel purses his lips and suppresses a complaint. Null gives her a surreptitious thumbs-up which she pretends not to see.

“As for the rest of you,” Toth sighs, “I expect you’re all exhausted after the zealous greeting we received here in Saguaro. You’re at liberty to set up camp closer to town.”

The assorted villagers who have been milling about hem and haw and kick idly at the dust, but it seems Fawn’s word was enough to placate them. For now. Still, the situation is tense at best, and if she sleeps at all, Toth will be doing so with one eye open.

Jethro limps forward as the other men gather up the supplies. “What about you, Captain?”

“I’m going to find Skout,” she replies. “I’m fully expecting Manuel to bungle our inventory, not to mention that our spittoon girl made off with two of our living horses. It’s vital to our operation that she is returned to us as soon as possible.”

“Would you like to take my horse, Captain?” Jethro asks. “He’s not exactly fresh, but he’ll last you the night.”

This time, when Toth smiles, it feels genuine. “Thank you, Jethro.” She mounts up and circles her horse around the soldiers once. “As Don Paragon’s men, you have all received adequate training in how to dress wounds after battle. Use it. Help each other. I will return as soon as possible with the last of our team.”

“Yeah, she’s probably alive,” Manuel snorts, _“probably.”_

Toth raises a brow. “Congratulations. You’re now on latrine duty as well.”

With that, she spurs her mount to a gallop, vanishing in a billow of dust.

 

Before Toth could walk, before she could talk, before she had developed any sense of self-preservation, or equilibrium, or awareness, Toth could ride. Her mother's mare, a blue roan with a sharp temperament, was a protective force in her life from the day she was born, and, as though sensing the fragility of the fearless infant, took great care when Toth was first placed on her shoulders.  _The saddle-gift,_ they'd called it. Some children, it was believed, were simply born with it. There are times that Toth believes it, too. She has always been better with horses than with people, has always been kinder, softer, smarter in the saddle. A horse loves without question. Follows without command. She'd mourned the death of her mother's mare almost as much as the death of her mother herself. Even now, divorced from her community, that bond to her animals remains. And in spite of everything, with the stars to her back and the desert open before her on the search for Skout, Toth can't help but feel at ease with the metronomic rhythm of the creature beneath her as they canter across strange land. Here, if nowhere else, it still feels like she's in control.

And maybe almost like she's free.

An hour into her search, as Jethro's horse begins to falter, Toth feels her anxiety rise. Skout is like her in some ways. Saddle-gifted. But there's no sign of the horses slowing to a stop, or a rest. Their path in the desert sand -- fading with every slight breeze -- indicates their continued panic; the spacing of the hoofmarks tells her they maintained a canter for at least an hour. So why hadn't Skout attempted to slow them? Though she'd block the notion from her mind if she could, Toth can't help but recall Manuel's derisive remark before she left, a low blow that bruised her morale.  _She's probably alive. Probably._

There's no rhyme or reason as to the direction Skout took the horses in, either. As her borrowed mount staggers to a walk, his heaving sides dark with sweat, Toth takes the time to observe the stars, shifting the sky in her mind to its position when Skout would have been through the area. What constellations could she possibly have been navigating by?

Toth's heart suddenly swells at the sight of a silhouette on the horizon, though it sinks just as rapidly at the realization that it's Fawn she sees, her cloaked figure a brooding spectre on the hill.

"Why have you stopped your search?" Toth demands upon approach.

Fawn doesn't seem the least bit surprised at her arrival. "The trail ends. Sand shifted over it. I'm trying to pick it up again."

A deep sigh pulls the breath from Toth's lungs, tugging at the edges of her dread, the fragments of her psyche that are crying catastrophe. "Our search might go faster if we continue on separate routes."

"Our search won't end if we pick the wrong routes," Fawn retorts. She pulls her hood closer to her frame before finally hazarding a glance at the captain. "You know her well, I'm sure. Can't you sense where she's gone?"

"I..." Toth bites her lip. "I'm not what you might call an expert tracker."

"Certainly not, if you followed rumors of the Nomad to our town," Fawn laughs drily, "but that isn't what I mean. I know what she means to you, sister. I saw it in your eyes when you were prepared to take my life."

Toth meets Fawn's arresting (deep, calm, knowing) blue gaze with a challenging stare. "You have no idea what she means to me, _stranger."_

A harsh silence rings hollow between them for what feels like an age, broken only by the breaths and whickers of the horses, the skitter and the murmur of silicate grains tumbling across the sand with the wind. Toth thinks Fawn might finally speak, but the other woman merely smiles and closes her eyes.

It's an invitation.

Toth shuts her eyes and imagines Skout at the moment she severed the horses from the wagons, terrified, shaking, her face grey with soot, hair smelling of smoke, skin blistering and raw where it had been closest to the flames. She imagines her arms coming to loop around the neck of the horse beneath her, legs scrabbling for balance, hands curling into the mane as they shot from fire into dark. She pictures the scene upon glancing back at herself, a final act of disobedience on Skout's part before the grand show of her disappearance, taking Toth in as she fades to just a shape against the blinding orange light that's engulfed the wagon. In her mind's eye, as she allows herself to inhabit an imagined Skout, she lets her horses lead the way, trusting in their animal intuition. The horses are still connected at the harness, but without Toth's direction to guide them, they begin to veer west, tugged by the more stubborn of the two. At this point, Skout must be exhausted, perhaps contemplating rest, perhaps weighing the risks of stopping in strange territory with no weapons on her person and no way of calling out to Toth for help. She has no water. No bedroll. No kindling. No wood. Can she afford to stop? What would her survival books advise?

Her hand drifts to her pocket. Toth feels the soft leather cover of Skout's travel log against the rough callous of her fingertip, softened by the elements and worn at the edges with age. She can only hope that reading it is an excusable trespass. The book is open in her palms before she can stop herself, and she skims its contents for clues (and only clues; nothing else, nothing but what is necessary, what is pertinent, what is impersonal).

_\-- Toth said I didn't have to worry about anyone trying to reassign me --_

_\-- someone tore pages from my books for tinder again --_

_\-- I hope Toth likes the embroidery I added when I mended her tunic --_

_\-- my guide advises on finding water in the desert. I pray Don Paragon never gets his hands on it. While it's true that oases do exist, and are indicative of a shallow water table, stumbling across one requires more luck than skill. However, some knowledge of geology can be enough to find running water. Even a trickle should keep you alive, if it's clean. I hope I never have to test this theory._

Toth snaps the journal closed and turns to Fawn. "What stone features are there in this part of Nowhere?"

Fawn's eyes flicker open. They truly are lovely. Toth feels her heart clench at the thought. "There's a ravine not far from here, just a little way's west. And a granite monadnock due north." Fawn squints up at the stars. "Daylight will be upon us soon. When it is, Skout will be a likely target for anyone else who might be wandering these parts. Take my map and find the ravine. I'll check the granite mount. With any luck, we'll be the first to find her."

She's not thrilled to be the one taking orders, but Toth accepts the directions for now. "If you don't find her, wait for me in Saguaro," Toth says. Her voice drops. "And if we _both_ fail to find her, I  _will_ be holding you responsible."

"I have no doubt." Fawn smiles demurely. "Good luck, sister."

Toth scowls. "Good luck, stranger."

 

Before Toth could walk, before she could talk, before she had developed any sense of self-preservation, or equilibrium, or awareness, Toth could ride. Sometimes she feels it's all she knows how to do. Riding. Fighting. Surviving. She might not be born to lead. Captaincy doesn't run in her blood. It isn't becoming of her, in all her imperfection. But in spite of her shortcomings, which Toth will admit are ample, Skout never ceases to believe in her. Maybe it's a matter of foolhardiness. Perhaps Skout sees something in her that she doesn't see in herself. Knows something she doesn't know. She can hope. And Toth, she's built a life on hope. So if Toth can just ride a little farther, hold out hope a little longer, maybe that will be enough.


End file.
